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The First Thing I Bought When I Got Rich: Gotye

The First Thing I Bought When I Got Rich is a recurring feature in which today's most popular artists open up about the big purchases they made immediately following early success.

One song is all it takes to launch a career. A year ago, there's a good chance that you didn't know much about Belgium-born, Australia-raised musician Gotye. Then his single "Somebody That I Used To Know" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks, and the rest is history.

Since then, Gotye has toured, worked on more music, and of course, made a lot of money. He's not a flashy guy, but success did afford him the opportunity to make one of his biggest dream purchases a reality. Here's his story...

What was the first thing you bought when you got rich?It was fairly recent. I bought an obscure organ from the early 1970s called a Yamaha EX-42.

How much did it cost?It set me back three to four thousand dollars.

When did you buy it?Last month. I was looking for it for a while. I never actually thought I would ever find one. Somehow, through a series of events, it came together to locate one not too far from where I was living. It took about a month to get the service to transport it and everything. I only got to play it for about half an hour before I left for the tour so it’s going to be waiting for me when I get home.

Where did you buy it?In Victoria, Australia, where I live.

How did it go from your dream purchase to sitting in your home?I first heard about it when François Tétaz mentioned it to me—he's the guy who mixed my last two albums. That was probably three or four years ago. You can find bits and pieces of information and some photos online. There's maybe one or two videos on YouTube from a guy in Brazil who demonstrates playing parts of it.

I was aware of some of the different records—all the rich people used it in the 70s. Guys like Vangelis used related models and he [was doing] some pretty prolonged pop records at that time. I was fascinated by the look as well because it’s a huge spaceship of a thing. It’s all watts because there's two huge speakers.